MAMORU OSHII'S THE RED SPECTACLES

The Charge

Opening Statement

Try to imagine this: instead of David Lynch making the esoteric
Eraserhead, he decided to make an adaptation of George Orwell's
1984 instead.

Except that he made it entirely in Japanese, while drinking lots of booze
and watching Alphaville on constant repeat. But also, he made the film as
a comedy. But at the same time, not really.

Then, perhaps, you would have something that was totally identical to, but
not actually anything like, Mamoru Oshii's The Red Spectacles, a strange
and wonderful movie almost exactly like, but not really like, anything you've
ever seen.

Facts of the Case

They were known as the "Watchdogs of Hell."

It is the end of the 20th century. The Metropolitan Police have begun to
lose control of the city; crime runs rampant and people are no longer safe. The
solution: the establishment of the Anti Vicious Crime Heavily Armored Mobile
Special Investigations Unit. Created by men and women of high intellect and
physical strength who had a particularly strong, even fanatical sense of
justice, they were nicknamed "Kerberos" (loose Japanese translation of
"Cerberus"), and armed with special "reinforcement gear"
body armor and heavy weaponry.

But what started as a noble and courageous effort to stop the onslaught of
crime soon spiraled out of control. Their overzealous actions and fanatical
hatred of evil soon led to less-than policeman-like behavior. Public criticism
grew as their investigational tactics grew more aggressive, crueler, and more
corrupt. The turning point occurred when a Kerberos member, during a routine
investigation, beat a misdemeanor offender to death.

This was the catalyst, the justification to shut the group down forever and
dissolve it completely. However, there were those in the Kerberos group that
refused to disarm. Three of the elite rebelled against the system, and fought
their way through the city. The other two become wounded, and were unable to
escape capture. Only one -- senior detective Koichi Todome -- managed to escape,
and he promises the others that he will return for them.

Several years later, Koichi, a fugitive from the government, returns home
for reasons that seem unclear. The city has decayed at an exponential rate and
is completely unlike the place he left behind. Everything is surreal and
strange, blurred and nondescript. He wanders, trying to find some semblance of
his past, trying to find his comrades left behind. But the city itself seems to
resist him, and there are those who realize the threat Koichi imposes, that his
return is more dangerous than anyone could realize.

The Evidence

This film, along with Stray Dog and Talking Head comprise the
abstruse Mamoru Oshii Cinema Trilogy, based loosely around a manga that
would eventually go on to inspire the Oshii-penned moody anime Jin-Roh.
In a sense, these films are live-action prequels to Jin-Roh, as they
exist in the same universe (Talking Head stretches this rationale, but
you could still argue it).

Having only previously seen the Kerberos in animated form (Jin-Roh),
I was surprised how cool and sleek the outfits looked on real-life actors. If
the Germans wore full suits of black body armor during WWII, it would like the
"reinforcement gear" of the Kerberos. They are gunmetal-black panzer
attack suits, complete with gigantic machine guns and freaky-glowing red eyes.
As far as intimidation goes, these suits are second to none.

When compared to Oshii's other work, The Red Spectacles contains the
same philosophical ruminations and questions found in his cinematic canon
(Ghost In The Shell, Patlabor, and such), executed in a
deconstructive and surrealist fashion, but with strange twists. Despite the dark
and sinister overtones of the subject matter, The Red Spectacles, is
downright hilarious in a bizarre, French New Wave slapstick sort of way -- the
quick edits, the nonsensical sequences, the ridiculous music, the complete
disregard for the cinematic illusion all help to skew a dark and twisted
psychological thriller into...something else, something very difficult to
quantify.

The best way to describe it, I think, is that this film was approached like
an anime film -- it just happens to be in live-action. The comedic sequences are
so over-the-top and befuddling, full of bizarre character positioning and
pantomime, but completely on par with the framing, the pacing, and the
expressions of animated characters in a Japanese anime. You would think nothing
of it if the film were a cartoon -- but seeing the same sequences performed by
live actors? Well; a unique experience, to say the least. If you have been
fortunate enough to see the kick-'em-up hilarious South Korean film Volcano
High, then you will have a sense of what I describe.

The majority of the film is shot in grim black-and-white that has a peculiar
green undertone, almost like viewing the world through night-vision goggles. It
makes for a very creepy visual image. Indeed, the visuals are downright
perplexing, and rival even the most Lynchian cinematic nightmarish displays of
decay and dystopia. The Red Spectacles manages to be confusing and quite
somber despite its ingrained tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. I know, it sounds
like I contradict myself, but I assure you, this is the case.

"Psychotropic" would be a good descriptive. What is happening to
Koichi? What has happened to the city? It feels more like Orwell's 1984
than anything else. Why does he come back to the city? Why does time seem to
flow so strangely there? Who is driving the taxi? What is really in Koichi's
suitcase? Who is the woman whose face is plastered throughout the city? What is
the movie being shown in the movie theatre? And what has happened to his
friends? And why, oh why, does Koichi get explosive diarrhea so often?

Don't ask. Some of these questions are answered in the film, and some are
absolutely not. If we are to examine The Red Spectacles as an
experimental, symbolic film, one that speaks with its visuals, I have yet to
decipher the meaning of explosive diarrhea.

This is an odd, perplexing film, and yet, an amazingly enjoyable one -- if
you don't mind that sort of thing. Me, I love it. Any fans of David Lynch, or of
avant-garde cinema that purposefully mocks any effort to grasp its motivations,
will be right at hone with The Red Spectacles, and for any fans of the
anime Jin-Roh, this film would be a wise investment, as it exists in the
same universe and fills in some blanks.

The transfer, for the most part, is clean and well done, though the source
material could use some restoration, given its ultra-low budget roots.
Smatterings of white dot the black canvas, and given the high level of black, is
quite noticeable. For some reason, there is a long-running perforation of white
dots and dust particles down the right side of the frame, which run through a
large majority of the movie. It is slightly distracting, but overall, the
picture is quite pleasing to look at. Black levels are saturated, but nice
looking, with a dark, green murky palate -- very surreal. The color photography
is muted throughout, with the exception of the color red, which is astonishingly
vibrant to the point of overload.

The music is a bizarre score of upbeat string numbers, samba tunes, jazz
numbers, rock ballads, and every other style thrown together in a peculiar
1980s-esque synthesized sort of way. It's quite a score, crafted by longtime
Oshii-collaborator Kenji Kawai, but at times, it seems very overdrawn and
manipulative, in a synthetic sort of way. The Dolby Digital 2.0 track, mixed up
from an original mono source, is pleasant enough, though a bit flat and weak on
the bass end.

The subtitles are passable, but at times, they scroll too fast for the
casual reader, and at other times, make little grammatical sense. Of course,
nothing about this film makes grammatical sense, or any variation of the word
"sense," for that matter -- so really, it all works out in the end.
The only extra included on the disc is the original theatrical trailer, which,
thoughtfully, has been subtitled in English. More often than you would think on
discs like these, trailers receive no subtitling treatment, so this is a
pleasant surprise.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Maybe you are one of those people who like their movies to, you know --
actually make sense. I respect that.

If so, then the Oshii Trilogy is not for you. The Red
Spectacles is not for you. None of these films is for you. You can put the
kettle on, drink some Earl Grey tea, feel comfortable and safe, and not have to
worry about messed up Japanese movies that make you scratch your head and
whimper in confusion.

I may come join you later, once my head starts to hurts from all the
scratching.

Closing Statement

I've seen a lot of movies; a lot of strange, strange movies. The
Red Spectacles doesn't exactly take the cake, but it definitely gets
displayed in the window to tantalize passersby. Plus, it has the best pool break
(the game with the balls and sticks) that I have ever seen recorded on film.

Fans of Jin-Roh will definitely want to scoop this film up as quickly
as possible. For everyone else -- any purveyors of the surreal, the bizarre, or
the avant-garde, should definitely put the red spectacles on and give Oshii's
Trilogy a try for a uniquely entertaining cinematic experience.